


Warm Glow That Lingers On

by Blake



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: BDSM, Biting, Canon Compliant, Competition, Dom Louis, Dom/sub, Domesticity, Edging, Established Relationship, Feminine Harry, Fluff, Gender Play, HSLOT, Impact Play, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Marking, Masochist Louis, Nail Painting, Power Play, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Sub Harry, pain play, present day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 04:39:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15766779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake/pseuds/Blake
Summary: If Harry wants his nails painted red, he's got to earn it first.





	Warm Glow That Lingers On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kimmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimmon/gifts).



> Who, me? Canon domestic kinky sex + tons of sap? No way.
> 
> This one is dedicated to [Kim](http://justlarried.tumblr.com), whom I miss very much and who gave me so many wonderful prompts that I felt inspired to put them all in one fic! Thanks to my editor Jen for getting what I'm trying to say better than I do!
> 
> Please note, there are a couple of lines about having hard relationship times and poor negotiation skills in the past, but they're not major plot points so I did not include that content in the tags. There is also a reference to Louis experiencing loss, but again, it's only background development for the character.
> 
> Enjoy!

Louis lets himself into a dimly lit dressing room that smells intensely of vanilla. And—clove, maybe? After years of enduring Harry’s weird candle thing, Louis has become more of an expert than he would have liked to be, but he still can’t tell the difference between lemon and lemongrass.

He spots Harry across the room, bent low over a table with two other people, his back to the door. Louis squints, his vision still blurry after waking up less than an hour ago with a hefty case of jet lag. It looks like Harry is at the drugs already, which seems a bit odd, considering that it’s barely past noon. And a bit disappointing, really, considering that they’re mutually trying to commit to healthier lifestyles and hold each other accountable. With the visceral anger of a true addict, Louis abruptly resents skipping his first-thing-in-the-morning fag. He had only skipped it so that Harry wouldn’t smell it on him and get in a strop, but Harry can’t smell shit with his nostrils coated in white.

As Louis draws closer to the table, though, he realizes that his assumption of Harry’s guilt may have been fueled more by sleep deprivation and nicotine withdrawal than by actual observation.

“Mitch will probably win that round, so you’ll have to beat him here, see. His backhand is his weak spot. Do you know how to return a serve to his backhand, shoot it right into the opposite corner?”

Harry’s using a pencil as a mock table tennis paddle, demonstrating his winning technique to Clare and some crew member that Louis has never officially met, making intense eye contact as he waits for some kind of response. Louis takes the moment of silence to inch closer, creeping up toward the back of Harry’s chair. Flat on the table between the three people is a page of brackets covered in scribbles, all in Harry’s handwriting.

“No, not really,” the crew member finally admits, looking up at Louis, who offers an encouraging smile, even though he has no idea what her name is.

Harry demonstrates with the pencil, narrating his movements twice over, all of it slow and serious, before pointing at the poor woman and saying, “I’ll show you later. Don’t let me down.”

Clare shoots Louis an ironic smile as he approaches to take a look at where Harry is drawing lines across the page. Harry’s back is hunched over his match-fixing table, and Louis sees in an instant how tight his shoulder are. His hands alight on Harry’s traps and squeeze before they heat up in pleasure as Harry automatically gives his weight to them. The only thing that makes Louis feel better than reducing tension in his baby’s shoulders is his baby recognizing his touch without a moment’s hesitation.

Harry doesn’t turn around, even as Louis starts kneading the tense muscle on either side of his neck. He remains intent on his handwritten chart, drilling Clare for info on someone called David’s weaknesses.

Louis bites the inside of his cheek, marveling at the way his husband can make a table tennis competition look like a seedy Ealing nightclub’s top-secret gambling operation that the Met Police forgot to shut down. Or an MI5 advisory committee.

“And just so we’re clear, once we’re through to the quarter finals, all formal alliances are dissolved. You are my enemy.”

Louis works his thumbs up the sides of Harry’s neck to the base of his skull, aiming for the spot that makes him go soft and limp as putty. It’s like an _off_ switch that Louis saves for when Harry’s too hyped and anxious to sit still for ten seconds or for when he’s distressing innocent people with his stubborn obsessions with things like winning table tennis matches.

Harry moans, and the muscles under Louis’s thumbs vibrate.

“Moral of the story, if you don’t let Harry win, he’ll keep inventing new competitions until he beats you,” Louis tells Harry’s colleagues, his voice cracking because these are some of the first words he’s spoken since waking up alone in bed. His only regret is that he could have easily made his way through an entire cigarette in the time that he’s spent standing here while Harry rallied his temporary allies, and Harry probably wouldn’t have even noticed.

Clare wastes no time getting up and out of her seat. She knows whose word means more in their relationship, knows that Louis’s dismissal trumps Harry’s rambling. She ruffles Harry’s curls as she passes, which is fine because there are still hours to kill before hair and makeup. She pauses a moment before Louis because Louis is still unintentionally intimidating to Harry’s people, but she eventually ruffles a hand through his hair, too. It’s fine because Louis hasn’t even touched it since showering at four in the morning.

“Remember, what happens in this room, stays in this room,” Harry warns darkly as she heads for the door. He moans again when Louis digs his thumbs in under his hairline.

The nameless crew member excuses herself from the table next, still looking excited to have been included in a temporary-team strategy session with the eccentric, flighty, and _did you know that he’s actually just a big, old, gay sweetheart_ ,Harry Styles. She probably knows Louis as Harry’s partner, but she has no idea that he was in One Direction, too. Louis kind of likes it that way. It makes him feel like his greatest accomplishment in life has been to love, to love so big that it can be seen from the moon. It feels like the most important kind of accomplishment when you’ve lost one of the people you’ve loved most in the world.

As the woman starts to walk away, Louis drops his mouth to Harry’s temple, and Harry leans into the kiss like a sun-starved plant, his arms snaking up like vines to slide into the sleeves of Louis’s T-shirt. Harry calls out to her, his voice piercing Louis’s ear, but that’s nothing new, “You’re lucky that Louis can’t be here every match, so he can’t compete. He’d offer me some _real_ competition.”

Harry cranes his neck to beam at Louis, who ignores him in favour of apologetically looking back at the person trying to leave. “Good luck in the championship, soldier,” he says to her, offering as much of a salute as he can with Harry’s arm stuck up his sleeve and his own aversion to even the most ironic of salutes.

She leaves, shutting the door behind her, and Louis hooks his hands under the lower ridge of Harry’s ribcage as he smirks, “I can’t believe people think you’re cool.”

Harry pouts, prompting Louis to kiss his wet, protruding lower lip but only briefly and only because he can’t help himself. Everything about Harry, even the flavour of his spit, is so good, like home. “ _Some_ people have good taste,” Harry complains.

It takes Louis a moment to recognize the comeback to what was his joke in the first place. He’s the one who’s more obsessed with Harry than anyone else could ever be. Licks his underarm, looks at nude photos of him to pass the time, uses his toothbrush, follows him from continent to continent like a proper stalker.

He’s too tired for banter, though, so he pinches Harry’s nipples, but instead of making him shriek, it makes him moan and sink deeper into his seat. Harry only has two modes.

With his baby writhing around in a plastic chair under his hands, Louis feels in control enough to bring up his purpose in coming here. “I brought you something.”

Harry hums happily, tilting his head to drag his smile lazily across the scruff on Louis’s neck, where he definitely hasn’t had time to apply aftershave or anything else that will make him smell less like drunk snores and sleep. “What is it?” he asks, voice sweet and spoiled against Louis’s windpipe. It makes Louis weak at the same time as it fortifies him.

He pulls the bottle from his pocket and twirls it between his fingers in the air for Harry to see. The nail lacquer is bright red—or crimson, scarlet, whatever it says on the bottle. Louis hasn’t had much reason to flex his colour-matching muscles since his days of being the only boy to help out with costuming in drama class, the only boy in a home full of girls. His taste for colour is about as refined as his nose for candle fragrances, but he’s an expert in what looks good on Harry, just as he’s an expert in what Harry smells like when he’s flustered.

“For me?” Harry asks tentatively, shyly nuzzling the side of his face against Louis’s, his gaze focused on the bottle. The soft give of Harry’s body against his inspires a nearly chemical reaction in Louis, a deep, fierce desire to give Harry the shape he needs to drape himself across.

“For you, baby,” he assures him, offering the structure that Harry needs, giving him permission to be overwhelmed. “So pretty in red.” His voice comes out even huskier than he’d meant as he thinks of Harry’s nails painted red, a dangerous colour that can’t be written off as androgyny. He imagines how the red would make Harry feel in front of a sold-out stadium, pretty and hot and embarrassed all at once. Thrumming under the gaze of thousands of eyes honed in on his hands, wondering where they’d been, wondering who had painted them. Sweating at the thought of what would be said about him the next day, blushing to imagine how much of it might be true.

Louis has no intention of actually letting Harry walk on stage with his fingernails painted red. A few years ago, he might have pushed for it because, on some level, that pushing and that exposure made Harry feel really good, made both of them feel seen. Now, however, a little older and a lot more hurt, Louis recognizes the very real dangers that feed the fires of Harry’s kinks, and he feels a lot more truly seen when Harry winks at him in the VIP box than when fans dispute which of the songs are about him.

Harry still likes to have his boundaries pushed, though, even after all this time. He likes to do every dangerous thing that Louis tells him to do, as long as the responsibility of the decision rests on Louis’s shoulders. He likes not knowing whether or not Louis will actually make him go out with scarlet red nails because he likes the idea of every part of him, even his public image, under Louis’s control.

They’ve talked about it a lot.

Louis likes to give him what he wants, when he can.

“Gotta earn it, though.”

—

Normally, Harry’s a good competitor at table tennis, sure. But Louis knows how to play him even better than he knows how to play the game. It wouldn’t be fair to play against Harry while he was mildly in subspace if the stakes were anything other than putting him further under. The promised prize of the nail varnish has set a certain tone, but Louis knows just how to twirl the racket between sets, how to smack it against his palm right before Harry tries to serve. He knows just how to make Harry imagine what else his hands, his paddle, could be doing.

Louis has won four games out of five, and Harry’s already leaning on the table, arms braced on the surface and arse undulating in the air like it’s out of his control. The way that Harry’s weight buckles for him makes Louis want to give him more.

“Really, you’re only gonna get one nail painted? A bit awkward, innit?”

Harry serves hard, too hard, too desperate to reclaim the match and earn more painted nails. The ball hits the floor.

People drift in and out of the backstage room where the table is set up, either passing through or stopping to watch long enough to realize that it isn’t just table tennis they’re playing. After losing one more game, Harry gets dragged away to do a thing for a little while, so Louis grabs some breakfast from Harry’s mini fridge and pops out his laptop to work.

When Harry comes back, his pupils are less dilated, and he manages to win another game. Louis eases up on the slapping and twirling and intense stares, hoping that Harry’s on his way back up and will actually earn his pretty nails soon. As much as he loves watching Harry drop deep into subspace, he knows it wouldn’t feel good to push him too far so irresponsibly close to an onstage performance. He used to have no such qualms, but he also used to be able to share that stage with Harry, to cover up his messes and mop him up off the floor. Now, nobody can save him from his own embarrassment once he’s out there. And furthermore, if Harry seems especially subby, nobody has any visual reason to connect it to Louis, rather than to, say, his guitarist. Not that Louis’s bitter about random strangers thinking his husband is sleeping with a straight guy. For the most part, he’s supportive of people thinking that Harry’s gay in any way they see it. Any visibility is good visibility.

Still, he prefers not to push Harry _there_ when he’s got a show in a few hours.

So when Harry proceeds to lose the next round, and then the one after that, stuck on Louis’s hands like a moth coming for a flame that’s already gone out, Louis decides to change tactics.

“Haz, Hazza...Harry.”

With glazed eyes, Harry puts down his paddle, clutches the table, and leans, very predictably, with his arse hanging out in the middle of the room.

Louis puts down his paddle, too, as well as the ball. “You’re gonna have to earn your nails another way.”

It takes a few long moments of Harry swaying and breathing heavily before the words sink in.

Of course, he gets it all wrong, misunderstands completely, moaning and arching his back even deeper, chewing on his lip in a way that fucks with Louis’s stomach. For god’s sake, Louis has _put down_ his paddle, and still, his baby can’t think of anything but it smacking his flesh.

“No, not like that,” Louis says sharply. The sternness of his voice probably isn’t helping Harry snap out of it, but his own tone is hard to control when Harry is being _like that_. “It’s almost three. Do you have anything, or are you free for a bit?” He hasn’t exactly decided how, exactly, the prize will be earned, but he’s more than capable of thinking quickly.

“I…I have to…,” Harry replies, completely distracted by the way that Louis’s innocently putting his hands in the pockets of his trackies.

“Go do your thing.” Louis’s already thinking of the cold cuts waiting for him in the fridge, of Harry coming back to him a little more clear headed after sound-checking or getting fitted or whatever it is he does at three in the afternoon. “Meet me in your dressing room after?” The upspeak at the end of his sentence sounds forced, but it’s there nonetheless, his demand veered into a question.

“Mmkay,” Harry sighs, looking and sounding for all the world like he just agreed to being fucked over the edge of the table with the handle of a tennis racket.

Louis heads for the cold cuts, directly removing himself from the situation. Any further instruction or guidance he offers will only set Harry further back before his unnamed three o’clock engagement.

Waiting in the dark and the quiet of the black-curtained dressing room, Louis tries to convince himself that he’s not selfish for letting Harry sort himself out, that it’s not unreasonable for him to desire having Harry under him but not having Harry _too_ irretrievably deep into subspace. It’s just that there would be no time for aftercare; if they had all the time in the world (which happens, sometimes), he would delight in patching Harry together piece by piece. He tries to remind himself that he’s not a bad person for offering to paint Harry’s nails red when he doesn’t intend to follow through.

Louis decides to brush his teeth clean of all self-doubting thoughts and read one of Harry’s novels on the couch while he waits for his return. He breathes in the vanilla and checks the candle label to find out that it is indeed clove, as well as orange, rounding out the fragrance.

When Harry comes back, Louis’s thrilled to drop the book on the floor, already offended by some of the subtext after only four chapters. Harry correctly reads the motion as an invitation to take up the space previously occupied by the oversized bestseller and launches himself across the room to spread out over Louis’s lap.

The hot weight of him on top is infectious, coursing through Louis’s veins like magic, making him push up into Harry fully, his softly intoned, “Kiss,” not quite a demand or a request. Harry stops mouthing at the neckline of his T-shirt to press his lips sweetly to Louis’s, but all too quickly, he pulls back with a bratty grin.

“One painted nail for each kiss?” he offers, hopefully.

Louis’s response is to smack his hand down on Harry’s arse, half a joke and half the correction that Harry was fishing for in the first place. Louis shouldn’t have given in, though, because Harry instantaneously breaks out into a moan, twitching against Louis’s thigh and dropping down into another kiss. Louis has to bite down on Harry’s tongue just to deflect the urge to hit him harder. It’s a difficult urge to resist when the outcome would be Harry’s hips pinning him down even deeper into the couch.

“For each set of five?” Harry presses, pushing his bum up into Louis’s hand, lifting his hips _away_ from where Louis wants them most, prompting Louis to squeeze the firm round of muscle until their bodies are flush again. At this point, Louis could easily just slip into snogging his husband on the couch until they both come in their pants, but Harry won’t let their bargain go. He pulls up out of the kiss and tries again, the greedy excitement of his, “Each set of ten?” tucked away in his dimples.

Helplessly endeared, Louis smiles even as he rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Really. You think you could take _eighty_ right now and still be able to perform tonight? To remember your own name, let alone lyrics?”

Harry relents, dropping his face to rub it all over the fabric of Louis’s T-shirt and mumble, “Well, probably...but...yeah.” Dismayed, he melts off the couch as he sighs, knees hitting the floor as his face continues to drag down Louis’s torso. It’s the perfect position for what Louis’s about to request.

He starts by taking the bottom hem of his own shirt and pulling it slowly up until the fabric pools around Harry’s jaw. Just for fun—and because Harry hasn’t noticed yet that skin is being revealed, and he deserves to be teased for his slowness—Louis bunches up the excess cloth and stretches it to stuff between Harry’s teeth.

Harry’s whole mouth closes around the fabric like it’s a tenderly handwoven gag, and Louis’s stomach bottoms out, even though he should have expected Harry to go all soft and pliant like this. Whenever he’s caught off guard, Harry’s instincts to be obscenely obedient override his intellectual experiments in challenging Louis’s authority. It’s terrible, though; if Louis’s already chubbing up at the sight of Harry shutting his eyes tightly as if to suck the full sensory experience of texture and flavour from the material stuffed in his mouth, then he doesn’t know how he’s going to make it through what he’s about to ask. He buys himself some time by pulling the fabric back out, Harry’s teeth obediently loosening to allow it to slop wetly onto Louis’s stomach.

“For each nail, I want you to give me one mark,” Louis explains slowly, shifting on the couch so that his knees hang diagonally over the edge, jostling Harry backward in the process. Harry stares at Louis’s bare stomach like he’s just realized that it’s there, his gaze not even shifting when Louis pushes his own trackies down to reveal his pubic hair. “Good ones, baby, yeah? Wanna be able to touch them and feel you while I watch you from my box.”

He’s had this request in mind for nearly an hour, but only now is he letting himself fully imagine the visceral reality of what he wants. Before, he was mapping out what to give Harry, but in this moment, he’s caught up in _wanting_ what Harry can give _him_ , wanting his spit and his careful teeth, wanting to feel the bruise of his touch while the rest of the world sees his baby parade around in a shiny suit.

“Where do you want them?” Harry asks, a little desperately. His eyes are flickering green and gold, like wind-tossed leaves blowing in and out of sunlight. It’s the way that his eyes always get when he’s trying to do a good job, when Louis’s asking him to do more than just lie there and take it. Louis smiles to himself, imagining the bold, unwavering sea-glass green of Harry’s eyes when he gets to a nonverbal, passive, blissed-out, submissive state. Harry’s eyes are the only colours that Louis could ever be an expert in.

“Do you want to choose, or do you want me to do it for you?” As Louis poses the question, he lets his eyes slide shut, sinking into the feeling of Harry’s palms skating across his chest, the rings catching every so often on a hair. It feels amazing to be touched like this, to feel so exposed, so coveted—so appetizing, if the greedy, clutching motions of Harry’s fingers are any clue. He loves the idea that Harry might want to choose where to mark him up, might have some vision in mind of a constellation across his chest.

But he also loves the idea of having Harry suck on him precisely where he’s instructed to, so he’s not at all disappointed when Harry lets out a high-pitched, whiny breath and says, “Show me.”

With his eyes still closed, Louis happily arches his chest up into the hand that’s digging into the crevice between the halves of his ribcage and reaches blindly to press his thumb to Harry’s lips on the first try. No matter how many millions of times he has kissed those lips, their softness continues to steal his breath—or maybe that’s the palm pressing into his sternum. Harry’s tongue slips out to lick the pad, making Louis’s cock twitch and his eyes fly open.

Harry smirks, pleased to have earned Louis’s full attention. “Do four down here,” Louis instructs, brushing his free hand across the span between his hipbones, just above his neatly trimmed pubic hair. The stretch of skin here is pale and delicate, low enough that it has largely escaped the sun over the years. “One, two, three, four,” he elaborates, tracing a finger across four points in a straight line. “It’ll be easier if you’re between my legs, love. Is the door locked?”

But Harry’s already starting in on the first point, lowering his mouth to and reverently parting his lips around the imaginary spot.

“I’ll take that as a _yes_ ,” Louis gasps under the wet swirling of Harry’s tongue. He makes an awkward maneuver out of twisting and bending to shove his thigh between the edge of the couch and Harry’s chest until he has Harry framed between his legs. Ever tenacious, Harry’s mouth stays gently suctioned to its spot until Louis’s situated where he wants to be.

Then, when Louis pets lightly over the top of Harry’s soft, short curls and whispers, “Please, baby,” _then_ Harry’s teeth clamp down.

Louis makes a wordless sound as the pain sinks in like a nail driving deep. Harry latches on and doesn’t let go, mouth eager and strong as ever. “Good, s’good,” Louis gets out as he forces himself to look down, his brain drying up at the sight of Harry’s mouth wet and sucking, so close to his cock, yet bringing him acute pain instead of pleasure. His body wants to buck into the pressure, but he can’t tell if that’s a reaction to Harry’s cock-sucking position or if it’s the instinct that _pushing_ into suction will reduce the painful _pulling_ on his flesh.

Harry moves on to the second spot too soon, but Louis lets it slide for now. He could use the time to find his bearings. Given the right mindset, he loves the clean, sharp arousal that comes with pain, but getting to that mindset requires a certain amount of letting go, and that’s just not something that happens too often. “Harder, Haz, you can suck it more,” he directs, because even when he’s the one inflicting pain, Harry still likes to be told what to do and how to do it well. Louis grunts when he sees his skin pulled taut around the edges of Harry’s mouth and then holds his breath until he feels the needle-sharp pain move through his gut to scrape against the inside of his spine before sending a shiver in a steep curve down to his tailbone and up the stiff length of his cock, a drop of pre-cum eventually dribbling out the tip. _That’s_ the pain he wants. He releases his breath in a sigh, letting Harry know that he’s hurting him good. “That’s it, baby, more teeth, yeah, get it all bitten up, taste it?”

Harry whimpers, obviously just as affected as Louis is by the rare treat of getting to hurt him and mark him up and pantomime blowing him and follow orders all at the same time. Louis trembles as he draws the pain deeper into his flooded nervous system, embracing the weird but delicious correlation between Harry’s relentless mouth and the leaking of his cock where it’s stiff against the elastic of his pushed-down waistband. He twists his hips, fucking into the pressure of Harry’s mouth, hitting the side of his neck with his cock until Harry’s mouth lets up a bit; he’s so easily distracted by Louis’s cock.

“This other one isn’t good enough,” Louis says, pointing blindly as his eyes slide shut. He’s too flushed and weak to even look anymore, so he just lets his neck slacken where it’s twisted and propped on the arm of the sofa. “You can go back to it,” he tacks on, voice hoarse and strained like it always gets when Harry bites him.

When they were young, Harry used to bite him constantly, a feral and possessive replacement for the words that neither of them had at the time. With just a single climactic bite, Harry would turn an orgasm into a tantrum, and Louis would take the pain, enjoy the evidence of how much Harry needed him, and soothe him every time, too young to understand that frustration and heartbreak were the wrong kinds of emotions to hand the reins to when safety and consent were at stake. As they matured, those confused manifestations of heartbreak fermented into 80-proof heartbreak, which, in turn, cleansed their language for these things as only a sanitizing agent could. Now, washed free of old blood stains, they have a sacred set of rules such as _only hurt me when I’m telling you to_.

Harry groans as he pulls off the second bite and looks down at it, which means it probably looks as good as it feels. Louis doesn’t deign to check, he just waits for Harry to go back to the first one and fix it, but the pause is long enough for the spit on his abdomen to feel cold, so he grits out a sharp, “Harry,” in reprimand.

Not another moment is lost before Harry returns to the first site, which is hardly even sore at all, he was so gentle with it. This time, though, Harry draws in a tiny stretch of skin and then works that inch like it’s a piece of chewing gum he’s trying to suck all the flavour out of. The acute pain lights Louis’s entire lower half on fire, and before he’s even consciously aware of it, he’s grinding up against Harry’s neck again, vision going white behind his eyelids.

Louis sinks his fingers into Harry’s cropped curls and pushes him down as he bucks up into the sweetness of that wet, tight mouth. It feels so good to help Harry hurt him in the right way. It’s not something they do often; for one thing, Harry likes pain more than Louis does, so that’s the priority, and for another, letting himself drift deep into the pain while still maintaining control of the scene takes a lot of work. And he has to maintain control because if he accidentally drifts away while Harry’s still hurting him, they’re both prone to remembering fights that didn’t end well, things that were said or not said that they’d both rather forget.

This, though—Harry’s mouth bruising his skin as his head bobs hungrily under Louis’s hand—has Louis’s cock soaking his pants and his whole body humming with warmth, safety, and power.

“Okay,” Louis gasps, his breaths erratic as he struggles to stay in the perfect groove between waves of pain. “How does that one look now?”

Harry licks a broad stripe over the bruise before completely pulling away to assess his work while Louis takes stock in the quiet, still moment. His system is starting to flood with endorphins, which means that for the next several minutes, pleasure-through-pain will be more like simple pleasure-pain without any need for translation. His cock is incredibly hard but not to the point where he has to come any time soon, so when Harry answers in an awed, hushed voice, “Red... _beautiful_ ,” Louis tells him that he can start on the third mark.

Harry shifts to get to the other side of his pelvis, stretching Louis’s thighs further apart with his shoulders and tilting his head in the opposite direction so that his nose is pressing into the second bruise as his mouth works on the third. The pleasure-pain on this, the left, side of Louis’s body feels almost entirely different, zipping up all the way to his heart before dragging down his front like a knife bisecting him. It steals his breath like fire.

“Fuck,” he hisses, managing to open his sweat-stinging eyes to watch Harry eagerly making out with his skin, moaning and slurping noisily as Louis thrusts into the air, wishing that Harry’s neck was still close enough to rub his cock all over it. Going a little mad without friction and needing _some_ kind of change, Louis curls up just enough to strip his shirt all the way off, exposing his full-body, prickling sweat to the cool air of the room.

His motion elicits a longer, more drawn-out moan from Harry, who’s suddenly looking up at him from where he’s sucking and chewing. His brow is furrowed as his eyes sweep over Louis’s torso, followed soon by his hands, which make loose fists in the recently tense but now lax flesh of his abs. The position gives Louis a soft inner elbow to rub against, so he’s more than content to let Harry’s bite sink in deep like he’s grinding his teeth in sexual frustration.

It’s only a matter of seconds before Harry catches on to Louis’s movements and surreptitiously bends his elbow further, giving Louis the soft space between his forearm and his bicep to fuck up into. Louis breathes out in a sorry attempt at a laugh. Leave it to his husband to figure out a way to get Louis’s cock in every part of his body—even his goddamned elbow.

For the sake of dignity (as much dignity as anyone can gather with a wet spot on the waistband of his trackies from how hot he gets for a couple of hickeys), Louis ignores Harry’s ever-so-subtle offer. “Next one,” he instructs as he lets go of Harry’s sweat-damp curls. As Harry starts nipping at the taut skin stretched over his hipbone, Louis drops his hand to press on the still-wet third mark. It’s as angry and red as the other two, the spotted shocks of broken blood vessels popping brightly from the swollen circle of dark pink. When he presses his fingers into it, he feels the pain like an ache all the way down to his knees, feels his sac tighten, feels the word _yours_ throb in his heart before spilling over to fill his whole body. “Gonna touch ’em later, the spots where you hurt me good, baby.”

The suck of Harry’s mouth sharpens when he says it, so he adds, “Can practically feel you _in_ me, you hurt me so deep, it’s so good,” as he presses in, the fibers of damaged flesh rolling like pebbles under his fingers. Harry’s hand finds his, clinging to him, asking, so Louis gives him what he wants and guides Harry so that _he_ can feel them, too, the places that Louis will touch later. Harry’s mouth loses suction as he gasps for breath around the tight clench of his teeth on Louis’s delicate skin, Louis’s hand moving their joined hands, together, to the second bruise, then the first. “When you’re out there, I’m gonna be right _here,_ ” Louis whispers, his voice disintegrating into a long moan when he digs Harry’s fingers in _deep_ , driving the pain straight to that electric place behind his navel once again. 

Harry’s mouth pops off his skin completely as he drops his cheek down onto Louis’s upper thigh to look over his work, panting hot air across Louis’s ruined, oversensitive skin. The sight of the line of four spots makes Louis dizzy with wonder and heat, the swollen pink of Harry’s used mouth, the sweet softness of his chin scraped raw from rubbing against Louis’s pubes prompting him to shove their joined hands under his waistband to pull out his cock.

“This what you’ve been wishing you were sucking on?” Louis asks breathlessly as he wraps Harry’s obedient, willing hand around his shaft. With his other hand, he circles a fingertip over the head, collecting fluid to show Harry, savouring the delicate-violent shiver running up his spine. They both watch the translucent string stretch from his slit to the finger that he’s drawing away; they both feel the twitch of his cock against their palms when the strand snaps.

Harry latches onto the last bruise again, sucking lazily and compulsively as he stares at Louis’s hands because he hates to have his mouth empty, but he knows better than to go for Louis’s cock without being told that it’s okay.

Frankly, Louis’s a bit wary of letting that mouth anywhere near his cock at the moment. Harry’s all wound up from sucking and biting as hard as he’d like, and Louis doubts his ability to rein in his effort when it comes to much more delicate flesh. “You can suck on my thighs,” he decides. “Gimme four more.” With his pre-cum hand, he pushes yet again at the bunched material of his trackies and pants until Harry gets the idea and backs up enough for him to actually move them partway down his thighs.

“Where?” Harry asks, his mouth still wet from where he was idly sucking.

And it’s that desperation to please that always gets Louis where it counts. He feels the fluid drip down onto one of his knuckles so he loosens his grip on his cock to spread it onto Harry’s finger instead, loving how it makes Harry shiver and tighten his fist so perfectly.

“Here,” Louis points to a random place high on his inner thigh, just below the line of dark hair at the crease of his groin. “Suck it.”

The words get to them both—Harry moans as he wedges his face in the small space between Louis’s thighs and the stretched band of his pants to fix his mouth to the spot, and Louis squeezes their interlocked hands and drags them all the way down until they have nowhere to go.

“Harder,” Louis grits out because Harry’s lips are wet, his tongue is wetter, and it’s just this side of ticklish. Harry immediately bites and sucks harder as Louis brings their hands up to just below the crown and drags them down again, dry and slow and firm. The pressure feels incredible, even though the angle of two opposing hands is awkward, and the friction is less than ideal.

Louis decides Harry can help with that last problem, too, so he puts out his hand, palm-side up on the crease of his thigh, and says, “Gimme.” Harry’s mouth is just as wet as it was on his thigh when it descends on Louis’s palm, kissing and spitting and drooling all at once. He tongue-fucks the lifelines and padded indents, pushing spit out until there’s a pool of it in the cup of Louis’s palm.

When it looks like enough, Louis slips his thumb over the inside of Harry’s lower lip, swiping it dry before pushing him away by the chin. He peels his and Harry’s hands off his cock for just long enough to slap his palmful of spit over the shaft and then wraps their fingers around tightly again, dragging the wetness up and down, twisting until he’s coated. With Harry’s fucking rings sliding along the underside, Louis will probably be able to come before the spit dries.

He picks up the pace of their hands and shifts on the couch so that his shoulders are propped on the back cushion and he can look straight down at where Harry is starting to work his teeth into the meat of his thigh again. “You’ve still only earned six nails,” he reminds Harry, who sends out a rogue finger to trace over Louis’s slit. The touch makes Louis tense and twitch, the muscle of his thigh clenching under the suction of Harry’s suddenly extra-attentive mouth.

“Seven,” he allows, the pain cutting straight through his groin. “Next.”

Without waiting for direction this time, Harry moves his mouth just a couple of inches lower than the last mark, closer to Louis’s arse, a spot where the skin is even thinner and more sensitive. It feels like he’s sucking straight from Louis’s artery. It’s almost too much, but Louis makes it work, focusing on the firm strokes of his and Harry’s joined hands.

Harry sucks too hard on Louis’s next inhale, making his breath abort and spill out in a choked gasp. “Eight,” he forces himself to say. Moving quickly, eagerly, Harry tucks under his own elbow to get his mouth on the opposite thigh and start in on a mirroring mark. His mouth is tight and warm, and Louis feels all the heat in his body drawing up and pooling low in his groin, gathering hot and close. Harry’s bold, persistent forefinger keeps working over his crown, his slit, pushing hard into all the places he knows Louis is most sensitive. Frustrated and close, too close, Louis pushes Harry’s hand off his shaft and strokes himself hard and fast like he needs it, leaving Harry’s hand to close over the head of his cock and massage it greedily like he clearly wants to do.

Satisfied with his new handful, Harry moans happily and rolls the flesh that’s still between his teeth. Louis’s free hand drops to his left hip, and when he touches the beautifully sore bruise up high on his inner thigh, all nine of the places where Harry’s mouth has marked him light up at once in a filthy burning circle. All of his blood suddenly drops deep into the centre of it, catching fire, white-hot, and then he’s coming, whole body snapping taut and vision blinded by pain as he fucks Harry’s teeth with his thigh and rubs his fingers over his balls until he’s spilled everything he has onto Harry’s fingers.

When Louis’s senses start to come back to him, he hears a low, constant hum and realizes that it’s coming from him. His spine is rod-straight, his tense thighs and strained neck keeping him up off the couch, so he lets his vertebrae relax and looks down at Harry, who’s gently holding the top half of his softening cock in his tightly closed hand. His mouth has gone still on Louis’s thigh, but he’s looking up at him as though waiting for permission to go on.

“Hmm, you can try,” Louis hums skeptically, shaking out his free leg and blinking until his vision clears up completely.

Harry gives a gentle, exploratory suck, but it hurts way too much, Louis’s wrecked and done body rejecting any further sensation of any kind. He almost kicks Harry in his haste to get his abused thigh away from that traitorous mouth.

“Sorry,” Harry rasps, sounding truly apologetic for having tried to finish what he started. 

Louis spreads his thigh as far as it can so that he can catch a glimpse of Harry’s work, of the small, purple bruise right where Louis will be able to reach later over his clothes. “Nine.”

Harry rests his face carefully and gently on top of Louis’s thigh and releases Louis’s cock before spreading his white, sticky handful all over the line of marks low on his stomach. He follows the movements of his own hand the same way a kid watches magic tricks, the same way Louis’s watching Harry.

“Clean it up,” Louis suggests, voice too soft to command anything as he digs his elbows into the crease of the couch to prop himself up weakly to watch.

Moving tenderly, Harry brings Louis’s pants back up his thighs and gives the soft shaft of his cock the gentlest of kisses before tucking it carefully under the waistband. Then he sticks his obscene tongue out and licks his way over the first of the red marks now smeared in white.

Even the soft pressure of his tongue aches in a vaguely way deep under Louis’s skin. It doesn’t feel good anymore, but it will once his system has recovered from coming so hard. For now, though, it’s enough to see Harry looking so happy as he laves his tongue over his hard-earned marks, licking Louis clean and obviously loving the taste.

Once he’s squeaky-clean and Harry has pulled Louis’s trousers up over his hips until his lower half is fully dressed, Louis flips them over, sitting Harry on the couch and kneeling between his spread legs. Louis smiles at the wet spot beside the erection that’s stretching the crotch of Harry’s sweats, but before he gets to work on that, he spends a good few minutes rubbing the muscles around Harry’s knees, which have been on the floor for far too long. He pauses only to grab the fancy, pre-rolled joint that he earlier noticed was being used as a bookmark in Harry’s stupid book and light it with the lighter that’s always in his pocket, taking a single drag before handing it over to Harry, who hums and sighs contentedly as Louis proceeds to massage life back into his limbs.

Once Harry’s eyes have slipped shut and there’s a thick pocket of sweet, sticky-smelling air around them instead of vanilla candle scent, Louis fishes the nail varnish out from the depths of his pocket, pops it open, and slides the soft loafers off Harry’s feet.

After years of being roped into a million of his sisters’ slumber-party makeovers, plus seven years of being with Harry Styles, Louis’s pretty good at painting nails. He takes his time, layering the red lacquer on stroke-by-stroke, kissing Harry’s knee through his sweats every time he pauses to dip the brush back into the bottle.

Harry’s hips squirm, but his smile gives him away. He’s clearly not too disappointed that his toes are getting painted instead of his fingers. Anything that makes him feel pretty makes him feel good.

Louis does five toes on one foot and then twists to do four on the other; Harry’s smallest toe is so curled, it’s not even noticeable that it’s the only unpainted one. Louis checks over his work, inspecting each toe and making Harry hum shyly. When he pushes the brush into the bottle for the last time and twists the cap until it’s closed tight, Harry mumbles, “Like the wild swans.”

“Sorry?” Louis asks, more invested in keeping Harry’s toes straight as they dry than he is in whatever nonsense he’s on about. Harry says the weirdest shit when he’s high, hard, or both. Louis checks. It’s still both.

“She couldn’t make all the sweaters in time, so one of her brothers still looked like a swan. Or his wing did.”

“His wing looked like a swan,” Louis repeats calmly, using his thumbnail to clean some excess red where it’s spilled out onto a cuticle. Harry’s toes try to wiggle, but Louis pushes his foot flat on the floor.

“’Means I couldn’t finish the last mark, so I only get nine toes. S’like the wild swans.”

“Okay,” Louis agrees, still not having any clue what Harry’s talking about. “Lemme blow you, and I’ll paint the last one, too.”

Harry takes one last drag before handing what’s left to Louis because they both know that Harry would burn down the dressing room if he tried to hold onto a burning object whilst getting his dick sucked. Louis gets his lungs full of it, pulls Harry’s cock out unceremoniously, and then breathes green-white smoke all over it. It’s probably gross, but it makes Harry twitch in his hand, and Louis gave up on being not-gross about six years ago, around the first time he made Harry hold his piss until he fucked it out of him and onto the bed. There’s really no going back from that.

Harry’s cock—or Louis’s mouth, or maybe just the air that they’re both breathing—tastes like weed when Louis wets him with his tongue so that his lips can more easily slide down his length. Harry makes fists in the couch upholstery, but Louis still holds the joint way out to the side with one hand, pushing the other deep into Harry’s pants to hold him at the angle he wants and to massage him with the heel of his palm at the same time.

Louis closes his eyes and slides as much of that beautiful curve into his mouth as he can, twisting his head to shove the tip into his hungry throat before pulling out and repeating the motion. He drools at how hot the flesh is under his tongue, imagines drawing more and more blood to the surface, filling Harry’s cock until it’s painful and red. Once he’s sure that Harry’s close, he sits back on his heels and says, “Look, Haz, your cock matches your pretty toes.”

Harry groans and refuses to open his eyes. Louis decides not to push him, half because he thinks the sight would probably fuck Harry up and half because he’s anxious to get his mouth full again.

So he wraps his wet lips just below Harry’s crown and goes in for the kill. He’s much better at fellatio than he is at painting nails, and he knows every millimetre of Harry’s cock, knows just where to drag his tongue as he slides up and down, knows when to pause and sink his fluttering throat down around the tip. He knows when to suckle at the slit like he’s begging for Harry to give him more to drink, and he knows when to let a squelching suction sound escape to drive Harry just a little bit past the edge of mad.

As Harry quakes and stiffens in his mouth, Louis softly clamps his lips around the head of his cock to create the perfect pocket of slightly sucking heat to spurt into, again and again, until he’s drained dry. Louis hums, stupidly happy with his carefully held mouthful of come, even though he doesn’t like the taste of it half as much as Harry does. He just loves being able to make Harry come so fast, loves being so good at sucking cock. It makes up for every confused, awkward moment he ever spent as a teenager helping out with costumes for drama class and telling himself he was doing it because it made him more popular with the ladies.

He lets Harry slip from his mouth and tucks him back into his pants, experimentally wrapping his lips around the joint and dragging in a giant breath of smoke before finally swallowing his load. The combination tastes horrible, and he’s definitely a vile human being, but at least now he knows for sure that weed doesn’t make come taste any better.

Harry laughs at him. Louis looks into his barely-open eyes and smiles, holding out the remainder of the joint until Harry manages to grab it on the second try. His depth perception isn’t the best, even when he isn’t high and sated.

With his hands now free, Louis finds the lacquer again and unscrews the little brush. It barely takes a dab to cover the surface of the remaining nail.

“No more little swan’s wing,” Harry mutters smugly.

Louis presses his smile into the soft, baggy material of Harry’s sweats. He still has no idea what Harry’s talking about, but it doesn’t matter because he knows what Harry needs. “You’re my little swan’s wing.”

Harry smirks down at him stupidly, like he knows how much fondness Louis is trying to hide in the folds of his sweats. He lifts the leg that Louis’s not leaning on and kicks his pretty painted toes into Louis’s gut. Louis’s offended for half a second, until the pain reminds him that that’s the place where he’s covered in Harry’s marks, the place he’ll be touching all night to remember how good Harry’s mouth feels on him, how perfectly he knows how to take care of Harry. “You’re _my_ little swan’s wing,” Harry announces, far louder than necessary.

Kneeling on the floor with his face in Harry’s weed-smoke sweats, one hand wrapped around Harry’s ankle to help press his toes deeper into his bruises, Louis realizes that any potential he had to be not-gross ended long before the first time he made Harry piss the bed. He was probably doomed the first time he set eyes on that giant set of glossy curls and pink dimples.

“I guess we’re both each other’s little swan’s wing.”

They laugh until the red on Harry’s little toe has dried, and then they laugh some more.


End file.
